Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 23 -- With a slew of articles coming out of Washington and other Western capitals predicting a military strike at Syria -- "force but not boots on the ground," as French foreign minister Laurent Fabius -- now Russian news agency INTERFAX has UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon getting in on the act.

With a date line of Seoul, where Ban Ki-moon is these days, INTERFAX reports:
[If deleted or changed, archive here.]

"Seoul. August 23. INTERFAX.RU - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the question of intervention in the situation in Syria, 'a matter of time. All the technical and logistical preparation is now complete. Moment when we can do it (to intervene in the settlement in Syria - IF), and when all parties are ready to take part in it - it's only a matter of time' - said Ban Ki-moon in Seoul."

  That's as run through Google Translate, but confirmed to Inner City Press by a native Russian reporter. [If deleted or changed, archive here.] It appears to come from the Ban Ki-moon remarks e-mailed out by his Spokesperson's office about the

"Geneva II conference to resolve this crisis through dialogue and political resolution. We are working very hard to convene it as soon as possible. All the technical, logistical preparations are now complete. It is a matter of time when we can and the parties are ready to participate. I am going to convene it myself as soon as possible."

  That is, INTERFAX morphed "Geneva II conference" with "intervention." As the story continued to circulate, one wondered if Ban's spokesperson's office had reached out, as it does from time to time to Inner City Press. Also, one wonders what a cartoon would look like of an intervention, convened by Ban Ki-moon himself?

  Beyond this dark humor, there is a lot of mis-reporting on this issue. Some referred to the UN Security Council draft press statement which Russia and China asked to send to their capitals on August 21 as having been a "resolution." And that... wasn't INTERFAX. Watch this site.